Enjoy watching Sidney Crosby play for the Pittsburgh Penguins for the next three years. Breathe it in, cherish it, and get a little sentimental if you want.
You will never meet people like him again in your life.
I'm not talking about hockey, I'm talking about the backhand, the vision, the power, the tenacity, all the things that made him one of the greatest hockey players of all time.
No, this is a story about Crosby the person, about him emerging as an altruistic figure at a time when greed has permeated the sports world and professional athletes have become even more detached from reality.
Yes, Crosby will make more money next season than most of us will ever see in our lifetimes, and he won't be living in a studio apartment anytime soon. But his new contract says a lot about Crosby the person and the captain.
Going deeper
Penguins sign Crosby to new two-year contract
Crosby turned down another big payday by signing a two-year contract that takes effect Monday at the end of this season, paying him the normal salary-cap amount of $8.7 million per season. His myriad superstitions are legendary, but we're overthinking it. Above all, he's not greedy and he cares about the fate of this franchise.
Kyle Dubas had no clout. The Penguins' general manager and president of hockey operations is highly paid and has equal power, but less than Crosby.
That may not be the case in other cities or other teams, but not here. In Pittsburgh, hockey stars are more important than franchises. And Crosby isn't just a star. He's one of the most important hockey players of this century, one of the best. He's still going strong and could have easily asked for a million more dollars a year. Dubas would have given him whatever he wanted. He had no choice.
But Crosby never chooses Crosby. His kind, unselfish nature represents his true character. There is nothing false or insincere about him. Winning is his only motivation, and it has been that way since he first came on the scene as a 17-year-old that summer 20 years ago.
My guess is that Crosby has made $8.7 million every season since 2008-09 and given up roughly $43 million. https://t.co/JRn4vKFkLO
— Dom 📈 (@domluszczyszyn) September 16, 2024
Just as noteworthy as the amount is the fact that the contract is for two years.
The deal runs through Crosby's age 39 season, a few months shy of his 40th birthday. Will this be Crosby's final contract of his career? Maybe. 40 is a good number, and by that point he'll have spent more than half his life as the Penguins' captain. It also marks the end of his 22nd NHL season. That's a lot of hockey, and he has nothing left to accomplish.
The two-year term has several implications. Let's take a closer look.
• We'll get to see Crosby play for at least three more seasons, which should come as a big comfort to anyone worried about his retirement.
• The Penguins probably won't go into a “full rebuild” for at least another three years. As Dubas noted, as long as Crosby is still on the roster, the Penguins are unlikely to finish in the bottom five because he's so good. Instead, there will likely be a mini-rebuild or retooling.
• Crosby could have asked for more years. The Penguins will give their captain as many years as he wants. He turned them down because he didn't want to be a drag on the team. Even if he signed to play five more years, what if he realized his passion for the game had disappeared after the first few years? Or his play might decline. It seems like a strange idea because he is the most consistent superstar in the history of sports. He seems ageless. But I assure you that's not the case. He'll be a man one day. Crosby knows that, and he doesn't want to negatively impact the Penguins if that happens soon.
The worst-case scenario is that Crosby plays three more years in a Penguins uniform, the team misses the playoffs, Crosby retires in 2027, and Dubas has the free rein to turn the Penguins into a championship team in no time with his big money and young assets.
So, at worst, we'll still get to see Crosby through to the end, enjoy his farewell tour, and all the while know that a new crop of Penguins players are learning to be pros from one of the greatest captains in hockey history.
That's the great thing about a two-year deal: long enough to have some fun with him for a few more years, but not so long that he puts himself and the Penguins under pressure.
If he's still a great player at 39 and wants to play longer, that's even better. No one needs to get rid of Crosby. And the Penguins might be winning championships by then. Dubas is doing what he needs to do. He's committed to developing talented young players. It's nothing like the occasional call-up from Wilkes-Barre the past few seasons.
The best-case scenario would be that Crosby, who is still one of the top-five or top-10 players in the league, can maintain that level of play for a few more years, just as all of these young assets suddenly blossom.
If these two possibilities come together, Crosby's final run with the Penguins would be something special, and it would be great to see him and the youngsters who will replace him have one or two final championship runs.
It's not inconceivable. A lot of it is made possible by the contract he signed, which saved the franchise a lot of money to spend on other players and assets. Crosby will be in everyone's lives for a while, but not too long, in case retirement comes around. If he still has great drive and a hungry mind at 39, he'll sign another short contract. Why not?
Very practical, very altruistic, very intelligent. Very Crosby.
He will naturally receive a lot of love from all Pittsburgh and Penguins fans around the world, and rightly so.
But with this deal, Crosby has repaid all that love.
He is truly one of a kind.
(Photo: Steph Chambers/Getty Images)
